WHEN I wrote about Miley Cyrus and the depressing lack of female role models last week, I had no idea that Lily Allen would burst back on to the scene, twerking and swearing her way into the charts and the national consciousness.

Lily has really put herself out there, running the risk of alienating the very industry that makes her millions, the world of pop where women are dressed up and sent out to pose and preen their way through performances, like dogs at Crufts but with more flesh on show and less control over their image.

But – surprise, surprise – even when she has quite rightly mimicked the hideous videos that accompany so much music these days, she has incurred the wrath of some.

The singer has been accused of everything from racism – because her white dancers wore coats and the black ones didn’t – to encouraging the very thing she is trying to criticise, that is the sexist images portrayed in promos, where women in bikinis do everything from the dishes to cleaning cars, all the while waggling their backsides at the camera.

Happily, Lily doesn’t care a jot about her doubters. She said: “It is meant to be a light-hearted satirical video that deals with objectification of women within modern pop culture… the message is clear.”

Yes it is, Lily, and anyone who says otherwise is either too stupid to get it or doesn’t want to face up to the way women are still being treated in the 21st century.

A case in point – there are only two female chief executives in the FTSE 100. Meanwhile, over in the world of sport, men get 61.1 per cent of the sponsorship share. Little wonder they dominate the sports pages, with only one in every 53 articles being about women’s sport.

So what can we do?

We can’t all make a clever four-minute pop video but we can do our bit. That’s what Katherine Grainger did last week.

In case you missed it – understandable, given the pitiful coverage women’s sport gets – Katherine rowed her way to gold at London 2012.

She and a group of our leading sportswomen got together to highlight the difficulties women and girls face in sport. Their plan isn’t in your face like Lily’s but it is still coming from the same viewpoint: that girls need help and encouragement to get anywhere in a man’s world where sexism rules.

Girls should know sport can be fun and a bit more if they are good at it. They need to understand you don’t always have to look perfect, a bit of sweat is fine on the sports field and preferable to dressing like a dancer in a Robin Thicke video.

They don’t get mentioned in the same breath often but thank God for Katherine and Lily. Both are using their fame to fight for women’s rights.